Greenacres Officials, Police At Odds Over Who Would Be Member Of Union

August 25, 1986|By STEPHEN J. COHEN, Staff Writer

GREENACRES CITY -- Just who would be represented by the Police Benevolent Association is the current topic of dispute between city officials and police officers leading the unionization drive.

At City Hall on Friday, a hearing officer from Florida`s Public Employees Relations Commission listened to differing version of what would constitute a union member.

If both sides concur with General Counsel Phillip P. Quaschnick`s finding on the issue, a vote can be held on the proposed union. Otherwise, the matter will go to a second hearing.

Despite opposition letters stapled by city administrators to police officers` paychecks, and a ``unionbuster`` poster mailed to offices and homes in city envelopes, union efforts persist.

Public Safety Chief Ebenezer Paikai said he fears a union will bring ``disruption, dissension and an adversary relationship into the department.``

The city`s strategy Friday was aimed at broadening the definition of who would be eligible to serve in the Police Benevolent Association.

By opening up the prospective union rolls to include firefighters, police aides and others who would be less apt to support a police union, city officials are gambling that majority support for the union will dissipate.

``The city just wants to put enough people in the union so that we won`t be able to get 51 percent of the total eligible membership to vote for the union, thus killing it,`` police Sgt. Vic Raso said.

But for the police, like Raso -- the first to testify Friday -- the definition of eligibility is elementary. Police officers are those people with arrest powers who, armed with guns, patrol the streets. They work eight-hour rotating shifts.

The definition extends to the sergeants who command the patrol officers and to the dispatchers who guide them to the trouble spots and alert them of what to expect when they get there.

``The dispatchers are our lifeline,`` Raso said.

Not so fast, city labor attorney Peter Hurtgen of Miami told PERC`s Quaschnick. In Greenacres City, changes are afoot, he said.

Within a few years, he said, the Public Safety Department will be staffed by officers certified as both policemen and firefighters. The differences between the two are melting rapdily, he contended.

Hurtgen then produced blueprints, which City Manager John Treanor -- the former public safety chief -- described as the design for a planned new combined public safety building to harbor all public safety officials.

Hurtgen elicited testimony from Raso that police officers also are trained to fight fires. But Raso said that until firefighters face criminals on the streets in addition to fighting fires and performing paramedic services, they should not be included in the union.

PBA Attorney Robert A. Pell reiterated that the union would be happy admit any city employee who has arrest powers, carries a gun and is working as a law enforcement officer.

Most city firefighters are not now police officers, he said. Their work schedules differ markedly -- police work eight-hour shifts, with three shifts a day. Every 28 days, shifts are rotated.

Firefighters now work one day on and two days off, he said.

Pell explained that representing different types of employees is complicated because their needs and working conditions often differ, sometimes substantially.

Unions would then be bargaining for different groups of employees, he said, and one group`s contract could be stymied by disagreements with management over another group`s problems. That explains why firefighters and police officers traditionally have separate unions, he said.

In many respects, Pell continued, police officers have little in common with firefighters, building inspectors and even with police aides, who do not carry guns and work daytime, weekday hours.